International Journal of English and Education 84 ISSN: 2278-4012, Volume:7, Issue:3, July 2018
Feminist Criticism in Abdullah Alghzamy’s Works
ALAA HASHIM JOUDAH AL MOHAMMED, PhD. Department of Foreign Literature and Languages Kharazmi University, Iran
Abstract :
Saudi writer and the pioneer of cultural criticism works in the Arab critical discourse seems to be a living example of the Feminist criticism .Abdullah Alghzamy is one of the "cultural criticism" pioneers in the Arab critical discourse. This cultural discourse exceeds linguistic texts creativity, to criticize other cultural aspects. In his last years, Alghzamy studied the Arab cultural patterns. He also singled out the women of extensive studies. Woman has formed the center of critical discourse of Alghzamy since the “sin and Atonement”. Alghzamy has instructed the mysteries of creativity to her, or perhaps chosen the critical material to be compatible with his intentions and purposes. Alghzamy is trying to prove his theory that the man has taken over the language and disqualify her Femininity. In this research and through this brief vision, we are trying to highlight the approach of feminist criticism in Abdullah Alghzamy’s works such as: "Woman and Language", "feminization of the poem and the different reader", "cultural criticism", "writing against writing". From the point of view of critics, these works are very valuable in the field of Arab criticism, not to mention that Alghzamy is the first to adopt the concept of cultural criticism in general and feminist criticism in particular.
Key words : Alghzamy, cultural criticism, feminist criticism, virility.
Introduction:
There has been a wide intellectual debate in the Arab cultural circles about the methods of literature or art reading in general. Many critical and influential methods have been found in the 1980s. This has caused a qualitative shift in literary and philosophical thought among the Arabs. Structuralism, deconstruction and other modern critical methods that don’t care about the external references of the text, have been found in the Post-structuralism. Critical judgments have been resulted from a number of critical streams such as feminist criticism, cultural studies, cultural materialism, etc., which led to the emergence of the cultural criticism stream as a major critical trend. Cultural criticism is a new trend aimed at uncovering intellectual patterns that hidden under the aesthetics and eloquence. This kind of criticism tries to exceed the words.
To choose Abdullah Alghzamy as a feminist critic doesn’t mean to ignore the efforts made by Arab women writers over decades and marginalize them. Alghzamy’s works that he began to write since the eighties of the last century and the woman was the central point in, are serious, deep, unique in boldness and methodology as well. This is what we find in many Arab feminist
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International Journal of English and Education 85 ISSN: 2278-4012, Volume:7, Issue:3, July 2018 writersworks such as “Nawal El Saadawi” as the most famous Arab feminist critic that Alghzamy don’t deny her favor in directing his concerns to the subject of women within the Arab cultural scene. She is the one who introduce the theme of feminism to the contemporary Arab culture, which was produced by a number of writers and researchers, men and women, such as “Georges Tarabichi”, “Afif Farraj”, “Fatema El Mernissi”, “Salwa El Khammash” and “Yomna El Eid”. Nawal El Saadawi draws her intellectual and ideological authority from Marxism and psychoanalysis like Al-Nizami, and not only addresses the value, social and economic aspects of women's emancipation, but also the sexual aspect of the relationship between women and men. Nawal El Saadawi has worked for three decades on the establishment of a modern and rational Arab critical discourse about the reality of sex. Her works such as “women and sex”, “the female is the origin” and “the man and the sex” have been the subject of a drastic criticism (Al-Samahiji, 2003, 71).
Despite her radical ideas, Nawal El Saadawi could not go beyond the idea of rejecting many of the methodological obstacles that restrict the highly sensitive Arab culture subject of women in her critical discourse. Therefore, her intellectual discourse was unable to advance Arab feminist criticism. These important steps required another critic who hasn’t started with the feminist criticism, but he has entered the theme of Arab women from the field of critical Studies based on the structuralism. He is Abdullah Alghzamy, who deals extensively with Arab feminist criticism and gives this critique its theoretical aspect and many methodological tools that Arab feminist criticism can benefit from in developing its visions and deepening its dealing with the position of women in the Arab cultural functionalism.
Depending on the achievements of “Karl Marx” and “Sigmund Freud” as intellectual references, and projecting them into an Arab reality characterized by excessive male domination and very clear patriarchy, Abdullah Alghzamy has started his intellectual, problematic and modernist project since the 1980s, trying to deconstruct the "Arabic virility" realistically and symbolically.
In the Arabic language, Sa'id al-Bazei and Mejan al-Ruwaili, in their book (Al- Bazei and al- Ruwaili, p. 305) point that cultural criticism in its general indication, can be synonymous with "cultural criticism" as practiced by Taha Hussein, Al-Aqqād, Adonis, Mohammad Abed al-Jaberi and Abdullah Al-Arawi. Therefore, they define the cultural criticism as: "An intellectual activity that considers the culture in its totality as a subject for its research and thinking, expressing its positions on its developments and characteristics".
In his book "Writing against Writing," Alghzamy studies "Women's Models in the Contemporary Poetic Act" through three models of three contemporary poets: Hussein Sarhan, Ghazi Al- Gosaibi, Muhammad Jabr Al-Harbi concluding in his study that the presence of women in the poetry of these contemporary poets "was purely feminist presence, because she has become actless and the act has become monopoly of men" (Alghzamy, 1991, 78). In this behalf, I will try
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International Journal of English and Education 86 ISSN: 2278-4012, Volume:7, Issue:3, July 2018 to study the most important writings of Alghzamy to read the feminist experience and discover the most important basic points that crystallize in his outstanding studies in feminist criticism.
1. Feminist criticism
1-1- Terminology and history
Feminist criticism is artistry and political movement that has begun in the United States and Europe in the 1960s and still continue until now. Initially, this movement was limited to fine arts and literature, but in the 1960s it spread to other fields such as cinema, music, theater, and political and ideological discourse. Progress in these fields, including architecture and philosophy, is still slow if compared to the pace of progress in other arts (Hafnawi, 2007, 52).
Feminist criticism has come from a sense that creative women are marginalized by male- dominated traditions. It was also hypothesized that women's experiences at the present time should not be obscured, but should be highlighted and considered as much importance as those of men. There are three ways to do this:
First: Rediscover, revitalize and publishing the creative work written by women in the past.
Second: Sponsoring of new works.
Third, search the "special type" in literary or artistic works of women, in intellectual processes and in the same methods (ibid, 53).
2-1- The background (Feminist criticism)
Cultural criticism places the art in its social, political and intellectual contexts. This critique has been derived from many historical and cultural sources. The functionalism is an important element of cultural criticism and the text is considered as a cultural production, not a rhetorical one. For example, the metaphor has cultural aspects other than rhetorical and aesthetic aspects and involves ancient functional hidden aspects in the cultural memory. Paying attention to the hidden aspects and cultural themes is one of the cultural criticism categories, and the main point in adopting the cultural criticism as an alternative to literary criticism. Its task is to uncover hidden cultural tricks under the cloak of rhetoric and aestheticism. This rhetoric with the literary criticism practice helped cultivating and penetration of cultural patterns. These patterns carry destructive cultural contents. Cultural criticism has produced new critical terms aimed at explaining the functional cultivation. New categories produced by cultural criticism which concerns about cultural patterns that have sneaked to us through literature such as masculinity (virility), marginalization of women, etc. One of the most important terms (Feminist criticism) is a branch of cultural criticism that the feminist critic “Eileen Showalter” wrote about in her book "A literature of their own" in which she treat the experience of women in terms of the problems produced by human society that show the woman as a cheap, inferior and second-class element
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International Journal of English and Education 87 ISSN: 2278-4012, Volume:7, Issue:3, July 2018
In. The new women's awareness has come to confront patriarchal societies, declare equality between men and women in all spheres and correct the wrong path that gave the women physically present only, not creative. Feminist criticism concerns with women as a cultural sign of social formation. It confronted the sexual abuse and physical exploitation of women and masculine domination exercised on by the protection of social cultural institutions. This criticism was based on the idea that most societies are patriarchal, male power is the main focus, social sciences are male biased and the media didn’t adopt a philosophical position for women which are still viewed with the masculine vision (Ismail, 1622, 19).
Feminist literary theory in the Western world calls the feminist literature to have a special female identity, which can expresses women's own experience and reflects the reality of their lives in detail. Women have been presented with patterns far from truth and reality by misleading literary models for long periods. Therefore, women’s experience and feminist literary have to be compatible in order to understand the female experience that will necessarily contribute to raising women's awareness (Shaaban, 1999, 23), while the Arab critic has made this kind of writing a charge for feminist literary and judged it to be a failed writing that included specific issues based on limited experience. In Arab critic view, women write for the heritage of women's culture rather than writing for the great heritage (ibid.).
Women's creations in all fields of knowledge, especially in the West, proved that women's historical shortcomings were not due to disability or weakness, but rather from the imposing of superficial life and expulsion them outside the cultural sphere by oppression and physical and intellectual exploitation. Only few names of creators - even within male standards - are recorded because of the policy of marginalization. Feminist criticism movement began with the student movement in France, as disobeying the political paternalism. Feminist movement adopted (Derrida-Jacques Lacan's) categories inspiring Derrida's deconstructive point of views that undermined the established dichotomies. In Lacan's work, it has seen a basis to support femininity, considering it based on a non-biological basis. Feminist practices have begun to contribute to the world's cultural map in successive stages since the foundation stage. Since the 1970s, feminist readings have begun to take shape, and they have studied the texts written by men about women and the extent of their impact that seemed to be associated with male patriarchal standards. Many names shone in France, such as (Louis Iriegari and Julia Christieva) and in British (Torrell Moi - and Elaine Shaw Alter), and the subsequent stages (the eighties and nineties) consolidate this critical method, and deconstruct male assumptions. Women have talked about their lives in a society under the imposed cultural heritage, entered the battle of life, written about languages, criticism, creativity, and proved their ability to change the prevailing ideas in their writings or in their impact on the men writings, motivate the men, move public opinion towards themselves, and change the dominant concepts. Feminist critics plan is an important stage in the intellectual struggle. "Some feminist critics do not want to adopt a theory
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International Journal of English and Education 88 ISSN: 2278-4012, Volume:7, Issue:3, July 2018 at all. The theory is always a reminder of academic institutions, and includes the characteristics of virility" says Raman Seldan (Seldan, 1998, 32).
Feminist studies have gone into correcting Freud's theories of sexuality. Mary Allman has derided sexual theories by saying: "Penile criticism". This masculine history has kept the women away from creativity because of their fear of a man-made world. Some of their writings expressed suffering from offering sacrifices to the prevailing masculine pyramid.
On the other hand, some writings have shaken this pyramid, and to promote social values by emphasizing the privacy of women in a language of confrontation, challenge and confidence, long after the great and irrefutable biological tax that may not be disobeyed. This biological necessity is historically and culturally certain for the formation of women since the pagan age of Athens. The woman was despised as evident in the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. These philosophies considered women to be a family necessity to reproduce and educate their heirs, and this masculine bias is found in myths that describe the women as seduction, chastity and vulgarity, all with a biologically explanative cover to consolidate the idea that the women is marginalized and weak. The critical woman often confronts this position and defends the literature written by the woman by saying that it makes wide political and social dimensions contrary to the charges against it (Al-Faraj, 1986, 33).
3-1- References / Historical Dimension
Some researchers refer to the emergence of feminist criticism to the late 1960s, although it is not mainly due to women's emancipation movements that emerged in the early twentieth century and their leaded by creative female writers and liberators.
At the end of the last century, the Anglo-American criticism was concerned with the study of human creativity and the emphasis on the absence of all the characteristics associated with the casual, superficial and marginal aspect. One of the most famous books in this context is “Thinking of woman” (Mary Almand 1968), “Women and Madness” (Feliccello) and “Sexual Politics” (Katie Milth, 1977) (Mahmoud Khalil, 2007, 135-136).
As for fiminist critical theory, "the French feminist movement has been deeply influenced by psychoanalysis, especially by Lacan's renewed theory of Freud (Seldan, translated by Jaber Asfour, 1998, 207).
4-1- Principles
Feminist criticism seems to be based on several ideas that related to the human being, in which it wants to raise the voice of marginalized women. Therefore it is concerned with the following:
•Women's role in the text.
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International Journal of English and Education 89 ISSN: 2278-4012, Volume:7, Issue:3, July 2018
•Exploitation of women as a sexual issue
•Limiting men's dominance in the areas of sex, and other work matters
•Focus on developing women's awareness. (Saadullah, 2007, 32)
5-1- Weakness of feminist criticism
Feminist criticism is considered as a conflicting criticism. It denies the literature and split it into male and female literature, while trying to convince us that there are special standards for feminist literature. It is feared that this will lead to the isolation of literature written by women, so that the males critics biases towards masculine literature and the females towards feminist literature. In addition, the criteria adopted by feminist criticism in reading are subjective (Mahmoud Khalil, 2007, 137). Feminist criticism references are based primarily on male writers and critics, as their writings have shown. It has been proved that it is difficult for feminist representatives to develop their theories without the help of male theorists. Helen Sikos, the prophet of the feminist world, relies on the theories of Roland Bart and Lacan. The desire to eliminate sex discrimination has changed to the preference of women and the glorification of the female, threatening to return to spin in a vicious circle. The claim that the female is the origin is not entirely different from the claim that the male is the origin (ibid. 138).
2. Feminist Criticism in the Studies of Abdullah Alghzamy
Feminist criticism has attracted the attention of many scholars and researchers in the field of literary criticism and contemporary social studies. Perhaps the reason lies in the special attention given to women in the contemporary societies and their political, cultural and intellectual rights.
The feminist criticism emerged under the urgency of self-empowerment necessity and identity as an extension of the existence of feminist writing, not merely as formality difference writing determined by gender, but as a writing that had its own characters outside of any racial differences that distinguish between men and women. Therefore, the feminist criticism is described as a stream not a method like cultural criticism because it has not developed to the level of methods yet. The evidence is that we have not noticed that the feminist criticism is subject to a coherent scientific logic. It is possible to study feminist criticism in the framework of so-called sexuality, which is a concept the feminist studies concentrate on. These feminist studies are more similar to social or political streams that meet in feminist criticism and concentrate on the idea of “victory for women” and demanding for equal and fair opportunities to men in the symbolic system (I mean literature and arts) (Qatus, 2009, 2).
Thus, the term “feminist criticism” is not “argument-free” about the name and the intellectual literary function. We may ask: what is the feminist criticism? Is there men criticism and feminist criticism? If a man wrote about woman, is this a male or female writing?
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Feminist literature is “the literature that emphasizes the existence of feminist and masculine creativity, each with its own identity, special features and special relationship to the roots of its own culture and social heritage”. The concept of feminist literature may extend to the literature written by women, and the literature that men write about women in order to receive it by women and every literature concerned with expressing women's daily and physical experiences, and their own demands, is a feminist literature "(Mahmoud Khalil, 2007, 134-135).
Feminist criticism is every critique concerned with the history of women, emphasizing their difference from the traditional stereotypes that are placed in order to exclude women and marginalizing their role in creativity. In addition, feminist criticism is concerned with studying their role in enriching the literary output, and exploring the aesthetic, structural and linguistic characteristics of this output.
The reader of Alghzamy’s critical output notes that he addressed the issue of women in all his works in one way or another. We notice that in his first critical work, "Sin and Atonement", in which he presents the meaning of the word "woman". He says: "If we say that the word “woman” means “an adult human female”; hence, these are sensory layers represent the explicit meaning, but the word has other psychological and social characteristics and meanings such as tenderness, affection and love. It may have stereotyped features such as speech, cooking skills and housework, and may have characteristics assumed by some individuals or groups from era to era. The word "woman" in the past symbolizes the ignorance (lack of knowledge), or (humiliation) in some tribes. The word "woman" to Omar bin Rabia had a completely different meaning from what it meant to Abbas Mahmoud al-Akkad (Alghzamy, 2009, 121).
Alghzamy describes the different uses of the word "woman" in an attempt to find stylistic differences:
(sanctity) ﺣﺮﻣﺔ Vulgar (home people) ﺃﻫﻞ ﺍﻟﺒﻴﺖ Literary (sanctity) ﺣﺮﻡ Official (wife) ﺯﻭﺟﺔ Social (spouse) ﺯﻭﺝ (Clever (semi-neglected (woman) ﺍﻣﺮﺃﺓ (Classical (bid. 122
By studying these characteristics, we notice that the culture has given them to the women, where the males use them according to their need of expression, and we also note the lack of independence of women in their own names, they all associate with the others as if women do not have the right to be unique in their own names.
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International Journal of English and Education 91 ISSN: 2278-4012, Volume:7, Issue:3, July 2018
In his book "Writing against writing," Alghzamy attempts to present models of women in the contemporary poetic act: "Models with holistic dimensions are represented by women's models as an intrinsic semantic value in the poetic text" (Alghzamy, 1991, 122).
In this book he presents three images of woman. The first image is the image of death. Alghzamy starts talking in this section from his small environment in the Arabian Peninsula in order to provide a living example about this image in his environment: (Girl has nothing but the cover or the grave). The meaning of the cover is the husband (Alghzamy, 1991, 18), as for the meaning of grave is to be buried alive so that her pudendum can be covered with the eternal cover. Alghzamy said that referring to Abdul Karim al-Juhayman’s description.
Alghzamy gives another proverb: “the Girl is for the husband not for dune” (ibid, 18). This proverb is one of the best living proverbs in the tribe of Hudhayl and the meaning of dune is a hill of loose sand and its characteristics make it have an erotic relationship with the woman. For example, The Arabs resembled the sand dune with the buttocks of the women and said one of the poets: “Her buttock looks like the dune between two dunes” (ibid, 19). Hence the woman becomes something owned by the family until someone comes and marry her. The word “cover” clearly indicates that the woman is a living pudendum until the husband comes and covers her pudendum (Alghzamy, 1991, 15).
It is unfair for women, this weak creature, to face two options in her life: either to marry so that not to be tempted by the devil to commit adultery, which is a mark of disgrace, or to be buried so that the burden of her, which makes the family feel like they are in a constant state of fear, goes away. It is an unfair equation that is unworthy of woman who is honored by Islam. The question here is: What is the fate of this weak creature if she does not get one of these two solutions?
Alghzamy informs us about the truth of these proverbs that make the woman face two options: The husband or The grave and says: “All examples are a sign of the collective feeling and the repeating of proverbs is a proof of this desire that doesn’t appear to the public, but sneak through the generalities to show this fact” (Alghzamy, 1991, 21). This collective feeling of embarrassment proofs that they are wrong, because the person who is sure of his truth will not be ashamed to express his feelings and desires.
Alghzamy explain that this point of view is nothing but repeating the old critical attitude in which the pre-Islamic people consider the woman as the devil and the snake. They ridiculed the woman’s awareness and said: “It is foolish to take the opinion of the women” (ibid, 21).
Alghzamy continues to describe the negative image of women in the Arab mind, through introducing some of her related characteristics, which he has divided into six fields as the following:
1. Characteristics of reproduction: the sheep
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International Journal of English and Education 92 ISSN: 2278-4012, Volume:7, Issue:3, July 2018
2. Characteristics of pleasure: the doll, the basil
3. Characteristics of the intercourse: threshold - shoes
4. Characteristics of conservation: house, cabin
5. Characteristics of fracture: bottle
6. Characteristics of constraint: constraint, chain
He finally concludes that the woman is a tool used by man for the purpose of reproduction, pleasure or conservation, and thus she becomes a sign of weakness and humiliation (Alghzamy, 1991, 22).
The second image is the image of life, in which Alghzamy says: “But the image changes if the woman is not a girl (virgin), because the type of relationship between the parties is the rule. Woman who is not married becomes a source of a different kind of consideration that may reaches a high level of sanctification, like being a one of the gods worshiped by man, such as the three idols “Lat, Uzza and Manna” who had been worshiped by the tribe of Hudhayl.
The woman may reach a leadership position between Arabs, such as Zenobia and Bilqis, or a living source of pure human joy, such as the famous Arab women (Abla, Azza, Buthaina and Leyla).
Look at this is image contradiction! After Arabs called to bury her alive for fear that she will be a source of shame, the image turns completely, so he respects her for giving him love and fulfillment, and even more where his appreciation reaches the level of worship and sanctification.
In the Arab imagination, woman has moved from the “buried alive” to the “beloved” to the “worshiped”. In this regard, Arabic poetry makes the woman a poetic theme, which gives her a double meaning (Alghzamy, 2005, 26).
For the sake of clarity, Alghzamy tells us more about the various images of the woman: "she is sometimes a pudendum that must be covered and sometimes the sanctity, majesty and inspiration. The image of the woman pudendum is the unconscious background and this image appears only in the collective feelings like proverbs; while the other images stand out in the human act, which means that burying alive is not actual practice but only an unconscious desire.
The double image of woman seems to have a wide range in human thinking as a whole, and not only in the Arab mind, but in the 20th century's where Alghzamy tells us about burying alive in China, India and Korea, because the women in these countries "rush to miscarry their children if they know that fetus is female (Alghzamy, 25, 1991).
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International Journal of English and Education 93 ISSN: 2278-4012, Volume:7, Issue:3, July 2018
The third image is the meaning; it is a template, a woman who has produced the meaning and converted of the dead into alive. Perhaps the new buried alive is the Arab girl embodied in the homeland, and Jerusalem is nothing but a buried alive who did not ask about her killing (ibid, 9).
Alghzamy has clearly explained these three images by studying three of the works of contemporary poets he has chosen: Ghazi Al Gosaibi, Husain Sirhan and Mohammad Alharbi. These texts represents: “converged templates with macro dimensions represented by women's models as an intrinsic semantic value in the poetic text” (ibid, 9).
He has finally concluded that the presence of women in the poetry of these poets was purely feminine, as she has become without will or action, and the men held a monopoly over the act, and this is only a reflection of cultural deposits.
In his book "The poem and the counter text" Alghzamy studies the woman beloved for man, a meaning that is made by the poet in most cases. The deer is a rich symbol of life and singing. It is a symbol of the woman and circumvent is one of its most prominent characteristics (Alghzamy, 132, 1996).
The Deer in the Arab imagination is one of the richest contexts. It is a poetry theme which the poetic formation is organically linked to and the pre-Islamic poetry is full of such examples, because the deer is the most beautiful animals and it doesn’t get sick. Arabs were calling the healthy one saying “he has the deer disease!”
In his book "Women and Language", Alghzamy begins with the language to touch upon the right of woman to exist and dignity and her right to reveal what she suffered and suffers, to make the man understand what he has commit for 6000 years of the masculine system and the hegemony he has exercised in the society as a whole "(Alghzamy, 2007, 2). Alghzamy begins this chapter with words of Abd al-Hamid al-Kateb: “The best speech contains virgin words and meanings” (ibid, 1).
Abd al-Hamid al-Kateb says: “"This is a cultural division, in which the man takes the most dangerous thing in the night (words) since it is the practical embodiment of the language, and the basis on which the existence of the scripture and the rhetoric, and the word is (virile/ male). On the other hand, the woman has the meaning, which is directed by the word and subject to it and the meaning has no value or existence except under the shadow of the word" (ibid., 1).
This masculine division was nothing but an introduction to more dangerous division in the Arab culture, the division in which the man has taken the (writing) and monopolized it for himself leaving the (speech) to the woman. This has led to the control over the linguistic and cultural thought of the history by writing down the history. The man, who has changed the language into a tool of repressing and marginalizing the female, changed this linguistic system into a tool to highlight his absolute power and authority against women (Murtada, 2002, 73). Alghzamy
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International Journal of English and Education 94 ISSN: 2278-4012, Volume:7, Issue:3, July 2018 wondered if the woman could write and practice the language without abandonment of her femininity, or she has to be “virilized” to write and practice the language" (Alghzamy, 2009, 8).
Alghzamy agrees that the woman has been able to produce the “virilized words”, and she has carried the masculine pen to condemn the civilization and the culture that marginalized her for a long time. But the question that is asked by Alghzamy is: Can the woman make the other’s language feminine? (ibid, 9). This means that Alghzamy calls for feminine language. Fatima Mohsen says: “Alghzamy progresses from radical positions when he calls for feminine language. The distinction between two languages is the recognition of linguistic separation, which is a difficult issue that women themselves find difficult to fix; it is a reality in our literary life (Mohsen, 391). Alghzamy provides a well-known fact that the man is biologically different from the woman, but "does she differ in her thoughts and mind?" (Alghzamy, 2009, 10). Alghzamy did not answer this question frankly and clearly in his book, but the culture answered it as “Yes”, but as a negative sense: The man is the mind and the woman is the body, and this is what the writings of males such as Socrates, Plato, Darwin, Nietzsche, Maari and Akkad say; her differences from the man make her incomplete man, because she does not have the tool of masculinity" (ibid, 10).
Alghzamy therefore wonders: "Can the woman use her linguistic creativity to record a positive feminine difference that adds a new human dimension to the language and culture" (Ibid, 10).
The exclusion of femininity from the language and the writing of the culture and making her a linguistic component, not an effective tool, has led to the total exclusion of her from the history, and if she was able to write the history «then we will read a different history of female makers of events» (Alghzamy, 2007, 11) and thus the balance occurs between femininity and masculinity.
Alghzamy rejects the idea that woman are confronts with her "femininity" when he think that if the woman writes, then she writes, tells and creates against herself, because she speaks using the language of the man and his culture and thinks using his thinking (Al-Samahiji, 2003, 392). Alghzamy relies on some female writers’ works to prove that and says: “I’ve reviewed the works of Ghada al-Samman, Samira al-Mana, Amal Mukhtar, Radwa Ashour and Raja Alam, in addition to Mai Ziadah and Sahar Khalifa, to monitor their using of pronouns. The masculine pronouns dominance became apparent in every case of experimentation ... As if the woman cannot talk about herself, unless she thinks as a male (Alghzamy, 2009, 19-20).
The woman enters the masculine context if she enters the field of career, she is (manager), and she is (the chairman of the meeting)... Etc. Alghzamy concludes that «The masculinity is the origin, the most, and will not be an origin unless the femininity becomes a branch». Alghzamy shows the injustice the woman face with by the language, which has set a forbidden area for her. It is forbidden for women, neuter and animals, accessible for masculine pronouns which is free
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International Journal of English and Education 95 ISSN: 2278-4012, Volume:7, Issue:3, July 2018 of excess feminization "(ibid, 25). This means that the language places the women, animals and neuter at the same level.
In his book "The Culture of Illusion" Alghzamy continues to present his ideas about women. He appears to be completing his first book, "Women and Language," criticizing Al-Nafzawi’s book “Al-Rawd Al-Ater”, considering him one of the founders of the illusion culture of masculinity , and strips the woman of her mind and refers to her as a body: "The feminine body in Al- Nafzawi’s book appears to be free of mind and insight and governed by lust, subject to exalted conditions, and completely stripped of any other value" (Alghzamy, 1998, 18). From the point of view of Alghzamy, this writer becomes a sign of the culture of ignorance, folly, and intellectual and structural inferiority: “and I will try to stand in the row of the ignorant and the fools”. Alghzamy explains that the culture tries to oppress the female with all its strength and denies the generosity of the female, and makes it limited to male. He says: «The guest is always a man and so is the host, but the woman is a lack of hospitality and one of the obstacles of generosity» (ibid, 99).
In his book “feminization of the poem and the different reader", Alghzamy admits that the modern poetic creativity was carried out by a woman, “Nazik Al-Malaika. She was surprised when she read this admitting in his book "The old and new sound", where he proved by evidences that the experience of Nazik Al-Malaika had been preceded by experiments since the beginning of the 20th century, and that she call all of these “experiments”, in order to prioritize herself in the field of modern poetry, "The priority is not necessarily for Nazik" (Alghzamy, 2005, 49). Although "Nazik Al-Malaika" has rebelled against the model and broke the poetry column, but "Khansaa" chose to sit down under its shadow «Khansaa has tried before and decided to merge, and therefore she did not change anything in the cultural context, but she became a voice that simulates and repeats, and then strengthens the model and its masculinity, until the poetry of Khansaa became a crying for men, with no position for women "(ibid., 52).
Alghzamy presents Khansaa as a feminine example under the male tent: "Khansaa is a unique poet who is described as a woman in the heritage of the man, or as an elegy poet. Therefore, the femininity of elegy will not come from being an art that women say, but rather from the art of pent up emotions and the voice of Sadness "(ibid., 54). If Alghzamy emphasizes in his book «Femininity of the poem» that the priority and leadership of Nazik Al-Malaika in the criticism, there are those who refute this point of view and think that the woman in the past has practiced poetry and criticism «It is true that some of them had the ability to practice poetic art, but many of them have a high ability to critique it... ». (Khalaf Kamel, 2005, 25)
Alghzamy has responded to this point of view by citing an instance of Layla al-Akhyaliyya: "Arab women entered poetry in the old age - subject to the terms of the poetic model - and did not seek to establish a different poetic model. She entered poetry driven by the desire to be like males, writting the poetry like males, and she did not consider the femininity as a human value
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International Journal of English and Education 96 ISSN: 2278-4012, Volume:7, Issue:3, July 2018 which can also be a creative value. Virility was the only creative development, and feminization was not able to be a creative value" (Alghzamy, 2005, 89). The second example was Khansaa: "This woman tried very hard to enter the club of virility, and sit in males’ tent under the leadership of the Al-Nabigha and the fellowship of Hassan, but she finally came out of the term of poetry and was locked in the cry box.
We understand that the woman attempt to follow the approach of virile without trying to differ from them is what made placed her in a weak position, and led to disappearance « since the woman did not discover the path of difference in the past, she did not notice the path of distinction and this is one of the factors that killed the voice of femininity in the history of Arab poetry over centuries of creativity ». (ibid, 85). In his book "The Story of Modernity in Saudi Arabia", Alghzamy shifts from portraying the situation of women in the Arab mindset in general to talking about the situation of women in his society in particular, and we find him proud and celebrates the emergence of a new female name in this book "This is the first step for a Saudi girl, in which she shows a new face in the cultural practice in our society, that was in the newspaper Al-Riyadh ... Kheyriyeh has been the only female among a crowd of men writers ... » (Alghzamy, 2009, 133).
Alghzamy expressed his great pleasure in the birth of this page and says: “It is a new birth, a living birth with eyes and breaths, which is hope, happiness, bliss and glory, a four-faced birth, all of hope, ranging from hope to happiness as a settlement of hope to the joy as self-realization. It is the finally a glory, because it will write a new history for the women in a society that has marginalized women over the long term "(ibid, 135).
Alghzamy goes back to the pre-date of appearance of the female journalist, exactly to (1993) to point out another female in his country that emerged as the first Saudi girl to write poetry. "I will not forget to refer to the poet “Thoraya Qabal” as the first Saudi girl to write poetry and publish her poems (1963). Her emergence made a fuss of controversies and there was a long dispute between Al-Awad as supporter, preferring her to Ahmed Shawqi and Abdul Aziz Al-Rabee as oppositionist... ». (ibid, 137)
Alghzamy recounts a situation he encountered on one of the streets in Saudi Arabia, which surprised him on the one hand, and made him very excited on the other. He says: "once, I was walking across a street. I saw a girl who might be ten years old. She had a newspaper stretched on the doorstep. The girl was veiled with a number of boys. She sat with the newspaper in her hand. The girl was reading the newspaper aloud, and the boys around her were listening. Alghzamy continued his speech, expressing his astonishment: "This was a great and remarkable sight for me. Girls' education in that period was not even in its early stages, and the sight of a girl in the street reading a newspaper was an extraordinary event. I was too impressed that I almost went to the girl saluting her and if I shouted at the people in that afternoon, announcing an
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International Journal of English and Education 97 ISSN: 2278-4012, Volume:7, Issue:3, July 2018 amazing discovery, and a remarkable social revolution, it would really be what I felt that moment »(ibid., 138).
Alghzamy recounts one of the customs in Saudi Arabia, which expresses the male domination against the female. "I remembered with this image (the image of the (Khafar), which is a social custom that prevailed in our community in “Onaiza”, as I know, and perhaps generally in all cities. “Khafar” is the announcement ceremony of getting veiled in which the girl who becomes nine years old or around is taken to the streets with a group of girls, and after this rotation they enter the girl to her home. after this entry, the girl waits the husband or the death, and she is forbidden to leave the house except for a necessary occasion and if necessary, she go out early in the morning before the sunshine and return with sunset ... » (ibid, 139).
Television is described as a "male cultural tool" and it has reinforced the idea of masculine functions that dominated human culture. This is what Alghzamy speaks about in his book "The Culture of Television", in which he illustrates the image of women moving and evolving: "Woman has come in the form of the cunning Mona Lisa, and Marilyn Monroe followed her with a flirtatious and charming woman in her own language and body movement, which embodied a portrait of femininity that was popularized in the 1950s and 1960s and has become a model for fashion and make-up designers. The image of Marilyn Monroe has become the artistic formula of beautiful women, and replaced the poetic formula with a radical difference, is that the poetic image was in the field of elitism and the beauty in it is the daughter of palaces and social or literary prestige, but the cinematic style has sneaked to magazines and focus as a second image in its colors, pigments and appearance to be a popular traditional model" (Alghzamy, 2006, 115)
Conclusion:
1. Abdullah Alghzamy’s critical plan is to defend the existence of women as a social entity. This intellectual plan relies on multiple and overlapping knowledge fields and takes analysis mechanisms from the deconstruction of Jean Derrida, the achievements of psychoanalysis in the field of unconscious, specifically with regard to women's view of themselves and the man's view of the women, and some of structuralism concepts, trying to apply this huge amount of concepts and knowledge on an Arab culture that has not been studied with sufficient scientific methodology. In this culture, he focuses on a central point that represents the culture view of the women, whether it is the heritage of Arab culture or the result of modern Arab culture.
2. Through many of his books such as "Woman and Language", "Feminizing the Poem and the Different Reader," "Cultural Criticism" "Writing against Writing"; Abdullah Alghzamy has introduced a profound reading of woman's status and relationships within a male culture. What distinguishes Alghzamy's intellectual plan is that he treats woman as a cultural function and cultural symbol.
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3. In his speech, Alghzamy has given the woman a single image throughout the history, namely the image of women required by males and must be beautiful.
4. Alghzamy perhaps exaggerates in portraying the femininity in his cultural discourse, perhaps because he chose models to serve his plan, but the history gives us examples of women who preceded men in politics, poetry and wisdom.
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